Brothers Doug and David Blank discuss the issues of the day. One is a Christian, ER doctor, and member of the tea party; the other is an atheist, computer scientist, and liberal arts professor. How did this happen, and what do they have to say?

Sunday, July 12, 2015

The Police Benefit Neighborhoods

David:Police departments across the country have come under fire this year as an abusive force in neighborhoods. I contend that they are instead the single force preventing many of those neighborhoods from destroying themselves.Doug:That sounds like a hypothesis that could be tested. How could you test this idea? But there are so many variables, you would have to work hard to eliminate them.
But why are so many unarmed, young, black men being killed by police? I don't see how having more cops helps that issue.David:Statistics confirm that the primary killers of young black men are other young black men. And, even though African-Americans represent around 12% of the population, they account for half of all violent crime. So the question is, why are so many young black men killing each other?
Whenever crime goes up in any city, the response from the folks in charge is to increase efforts to hire more police officers. Why? Because more patrols in dangerous neighborhoods leads to a decrease in crime. This is how to test the hypothesis:http://mason.gmu.edu/~atabarro/TerrorAlertProofs.pdf"We found that the additional police had a pretty big effect on crime," Klick said. "Our local and federal governments spend tons of money on policing, and it looks like we may be justified in spending much more."Doug:Welcome to science! This is what we would call a "data point". You need many data points, and they need to be reproducible. David:So, does that mean you discredit the findings of the study? It seems to provide a good testing mechanism for answering the question: Do more cops deter crime? The answer is yes.Doug:I don't discredit the results, but there are lots of reasons that those particular results might not be indicative of a larger pattern and meaningful correlation. This study shows "terror alert + more police = less crime." That is an interesting finding, but does not imply "more police = less crime." For example, I could imagine that those crimes (whatever it might be, from jay-walking to murder) might be disrupted by a terror alert. One could also imagine that "terror alert + more police = less sleep" but also does not imply "more police = less sleep."David:The point of this study was that the terror alert caused more police to be out on the streets without a precipitating event. Therefore, it did show that increasing the number of police directly decreased the number of crimes, without any other affecting variables.But back to your assertion that black young men are being gunned down by police. I might direct you to this site:http://killedbypolice.netThe data is incomplete, but indicates that many more whites are killed by police each year than blacks. You might say that's obviously how it should be, because there are more whites in the population. But let's break down the stats a bit.Blacks represent 12% of the population, but represent 30% of people killed by police. This is certainly evidence they are being targeted, right? No. Since blacks account for 50% of violent crime in this country, and you would be more likely to be killed by police while committing violent crimes, it appears that they are less likely to be killed by police. Doug:Not just gunned down, but also choked to death. No, you can't claim a relationship between violent crime and deaths. You'd need data that showed what the each person being killed by police were actually doing. You can't just claim a relationship between killings and crime. But I do believe that people of color are being disproportionately killed by police. That we can agree on.David:The data is lacking in one key detail, however. Was the person armed when they were killed by police? Without that number (which is unrecorded, even by the FBI) you cannot claim that unarmed men are being slaughtered. Multiple reports have certified that in only a very minuscule number of these cases was the death unjustified. In other words, if you attack a police officer with intent to do bodily harm, they just might shoot you, and would be justified in doing so.Doug:It seems that even a "minuscule number of" unjustified police killings of black people are too many, right? We can argue about how wide spread it is, but first let's just agree that it does happen, and probably happens more times than we know, based on citizen video. Now we can ask, why does unjustified killing of blacks happen? And then come to the conclusion that a blanket statement that "more police = less crime" is fraught with some troubling possible results. It seems it would depend on who are these police officers and who make up the community.David:So, you expect the police to be 100% accurate at all times? Infallible? There is no data that shows police are targeting blacks, and no data that they are unjustly killing blacks en mass. Assuming that it "must happen more than we know" because you saw a video of one man murdered by an officer does not equal data.
But the data does indicate that in some areas blacks are actually safer than whites with a larger police force.How could the police be favoring the black population?Doug:I don't know where that reality-bending question comes from, but continue.David:Two theories have been suggested by Peter Moskos, assistant professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York. He listed two possible reasons for the racial disparity. The first is that police assigned to largely black neighborhoods face “more political fallout when they shoot, and thus receive better training and are less inclined to shoot.” This is certainly true in today's media frenzy.

David:Sorry, my paparazzi kept me from seeing your last comment.Number two, police assigned to communities with high crime rates are more accustomed to dangerous situations and thus are more likely to be able to resolve them without resort to lethal force. Blacks tend to reside in high-crime districts, but that's a discussion for another blog. In a more affluent area, where officers do not experience violent crime on a regular basis, they may be more apt to use lethal force early. Doug:Police are more likely to kill people there.David:Police are more likely to kill violent subjects, and violent subjects are more likely to be in violent areas. But the argument is police who routinely work in high-crime areas are better trained to deal with the people in those areas, and are able to diffuse tense situations better. So, better training equals better outcomes. On that, I think we can agree.Doug:"Blacks tend to reside in high-crime districts..." I think you mean that poor people are often left with no options to move, and people of color are more likely to be poor.But I do agree that there is police training (and thinking) that could help prevent needless deaths. But without that, no way would I agree that more police is always better.